Reshma Kewalramani, Vertex

Ver­tex is poised for a shop­ping spree. But it’s still un­clear just what might go in­to their bas­ket — and at least one an­a­lyst is get­ting im­pa­tient

Af­ter set­ting the tone at JP Mor­gan for a busy year of deal­mak­ing, Resh­ma Ke­wal­ra­mani and her Ver­tex crew are giv­ing slight­ly more shape to the pipeline they want to build with $6.7 bil­lion in cash — but leav­ing much to be spec­u­lat­ed.

Through it all, the fresh­man CEO says, Ver­tex will re­main “a com­pa­ny that is about spe­cial­ty mar­kets” — and em­phat­i­cal­ly not a rare dis­ease play­er.

Ge­off Porges at SVB Leerink, though, sees the dri­ve to in­tro­duce new drugs to the pipeline more dri­ven by ne­ces­si­ty than any­thing else. The com­pa­ny, ac­cord­ing to him, is avoid­ing key ques­tions while ex­pos­ing “in­con­sis­ten­cies be­tween their port­fo­lio and their strat­e­gy.”

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